Alex had expected the first day back at school to be difficult, but "impossible" described it better. Everywhere he had turned, he had seen people pointing at him, whispering and giggling, not even having the decency to look ashamed when he caught them staring at him.

Alex sighed and hunched his shoulders against the chilly English rain, and then got completely soaked as he rode his bike through a puddle that looked shallower than it really was.

It wouldn't have been so bad if Tom had been there, he reflected, thinking mournfully of his best friend, Tom Harris. While Alex had been on his "last" mission for MI6, in Russia, Tom's parents had finally finished their divorce war. It had ended with Mrs. Harris claiming custody of her son, and dragging him off to the countryside to live.

Alex hadn't even gotten the chance to say goodbye to him. After the Snakehead mission, he had been determined to never do anything for MI6 ever again. But then, the day before Christmas holidays ended, Alex had been taking a walk when a black, nondescript car (really quite a driving cliché) had come up beside him and stopped. He had broken into a run, but two men in suits "convinced" him to get in the car. And, as per usual, once he met with Blunt and Jones, and was told of the pending world disaster, his conscience had refused to allow him to leave.

When he had returned home four weeks later, Jack was waiting for him with a solemn expression, and a letter addressed to Alex.

The letter was short, less than eloquent, and depressingly Tom. Tom had been Alex's best friend for years, and talking on the phone just wasn't the same as kicking a football around, talking about girls, and even discussing Alex's "karate practicals" as Tom sometimes called Alex's spying.

Alex was brought back to the present by a car beeping obnoxiously in the usual traffic jam. Shaking his head at the idiot who was driving it, Alex peddled diligently on, alone. Like usual.

Alex shook away his melancholy thoughts, opting to instead think about happier things, like how he wasn't really alone; he still had Jack. And at least he wasn't off in some foreign country being tortured by insane billionaires.

That's my life, Alex thought. Always revolving around pain.

Just as he thought that, he realized that he'd been staring at the pavement flashing under his bicycle's tires for a while, and that he should really look up now.

He really hadn't been expecting to see a solid wall of older teenaged boys with their arms crossed over their chests, standing there blocking his path.

Cursing, Alex hit the brakes hard, and spun his bike sideways to avoid smashing into the other boys. He ended up with his bike pointed at a small grocery store, and leaning heavily to his right side. He managed to avoid falling by jumping over the bike and just letting it fall.

He straightened up from the crouched position that he had ended up in. When he looked up at the other boys, he realized that he knew them. The one standing in the middle was called James Williams, and obviously the leader. There were about five more boys as well, and they all went to Alex's school. They had taken advantage of Alex's absences from school to become much more violent with the other students, something that they would never have dared to do before Alex had started getting ill and disappearing for weeks on end. They'd heard far too much about a certain incident behind the bike shed between previous bullies and Alex.

Alex guessed that he'd been gone frequently enough that they'd gotten over their semi-fear of him.

"Can I help you?" Alex asked calmly, looking James straight in the eye. He refused to be intimidated by a group of schoolboys.

James laughed unpleasantly, his sidekicks following suit after a moment of blank staring.

"Yeah," James said. "You can stop acting like you own my school." He nodded at his gang, and they stopped guffawing, which, admittedly, was more fake-sounding than actors laughing on television.

"How long did it take you to train them?" Alex asked, gesturing towards the older boy's sidekicks, pointedly ignoring James' assertion that the school was owned by James. "I'd guess that it took at least a year to teach them that that is called nodding."

"Nah. It only took a couple of months to teach them that," James hadn't meant to say that. He didn't seem to have realized that he had until his friends started mumbling to each other with expressions on their faces that obviously did not bode well for James. When James finally realized what was happening with his minions, his expression became slightly panicked, and he began to stutter something about just joking.

His friends weren't buying it. Alex could almost see the wheels turning in James' head. He could tell the instant that James decided that the only way to get his minions one-track minds off of beating him up was to get them to beat Alex up instead.

"Get him," James growled, gesturing towards Alex. It took a moment, but his backup finally realized that they were being offered an opportunity to put their only talent to use; something that they hadn't been allowed to do since Alex had returned from "sick leave" and James had decided not to let them pursue their usual activities.

Grinning, the five older boys advanced to surround Alex in a loose circle. James watched gleefully, smirking when he saw Alex cower…until he realized that Alex wasn't cowering. He was moving into a defensive position, that James vaguely recognized from a martial arts film. Belatedly, he remembered hearing that Alex did karate.

For a moment, James was seriously considering just allowing his boys to do all the work, and then claim all of the credit. He did that all the time, and the others never realized what was happening. Sometimes it pays to have stupid friends, he thought before dragging his mind back to the crisis at hand.

He reviewed the facts in his mind. Fact number one: there were five of them (six, counting James) and only one of Alex. Fact number two: they were all older, taller, stronger, and heavier than Alex. Fact number three: Alex had been ill entirely too much for him to have been practicing his karate recently.

James decided that he could join in the fight without fearing for his life. Looking up at the circle of boys, he realized that there was quite a lull in the action, and all of his minions were looking towards him. James realized then that he had forgotten to give the signal to attack.

Giving himself a mental smack in the head, he nodded impatiently. Nodding was his all-purpose signal. It was his only signal, mainly because that was all his gang had been able to understand.

James walked over to Alex, shoving through his boys when they refused to move enough to allow him through. They were too busy closing the circle in on the younger boy.

"Last chance, Rider," he said quietly. "Do you do what I tell you to, or do my boys get to have some fun?"

Alex raised an eyebrow and smirked, even though inside he was panicking. He knew that no matter what he said, the older boys would find an excuse to fight. Alex didn't like the odds. There were far more of them, and they all had the advantage of height, weight, and strength. But they didn't have any training, and any experience they might have would be against helpless kids, not the government's top-secret weapon.

With the matter of experience figured in, Alex was only worried about hurting the other boys. He never wanted hurt anyone ever again, least of all a fellow teenager who had no hope of defending himself. Hurting any of these boys would make him just as bad as all of the sadistic people who had hurt him and tried to kill him all those times.

Alex didn't want to be like them, but it seemed that he had no choice. Thinking quickly, he realized that the only way to avoid hurting them all was to act fast, and run while they were surprised.

He lashed out with his fist, clipping James on the cheekbone. The older boy jerked back in surprise, his head spinning to the right from the power behind Alex's punch.

Alex turned immediately and started to run away, but he was caught by two of James' zombie-like gang. He struggled fiercely, but one of the older boys twisted his arm painfully behind his back. Alex winced and gave in for the moment. To get out of the position that he was currently in, he would have to seriously injure the boy holding him, and that was something that he refused to do.

James turned shakily back to Alex, refusing to rub his face, even though it was throbbing quite painfully. He refused to give Alex that satisfaction.

"You just made a big mistake," he hissed.

Alex didn't say anything, he just stood there, face blank.

"Let him go," James said to his crew.

Alex looked up in surprise.

"I owe him a few punches," James said, looking at Alex angrily.

Alex was thinking frantically. He couldn't think of any way out of this. And why the hell weren't the people walking around them on the sidewalk doing anything to help? Surely they could see that six older teens were ganging up on one singular younger teen? Alex guessed that they didn't want to get involved in any "gang activity".

So he couldn't depend on passers by. And probably no chance of escape. Unless...Maybe if he could just knock James out without causing any real harm. The others would be confused enough to allow him to escape without too much difficulty.

Alex pulled his arm away from his captor as said captor slowly relinquished his grip. Alex shook his shoulder out painfully.

James had an extremely unpleasant look on his face as he strode up to Alex. He drew his fist back, and then slammed it into Alex's abdomen. Alex bent over double, gasping for air. Just as he managed to stand up, James punched him in the stomach again. This time it took longer for Alex to straighten up, only to repeat the process. Thud, bend, gasp desperately for air, struggle upright.

Finally, finally, James seemed to think that was enough. By this time, Alex was still bent over slightly. His stomach was throbbing painfully, but he was still able to move fairly easily, as long as he didn't have to use his stomach muscles for a while, he'd be fine.

"Had enough?" James looked down at him, smirking when Alex nodded. "Well too bad. 'Cause my boys over there still haven't had any fun, and you're pretty fun."

"You don't know how happy I am to hear that," Alex said sarcastically. "It's always been my highest ambition to be high-quality entertainment."

James blinked in surprise. He really hadn't expected Alex to be able to talk yet. Nobody else had ever been able to. Recovering quickly, he nodded. "Have at him, boys."

For the second time that day, Alex experienced the dubious pleasure of having a gang surround him. This time, however, there was a panicked shriek from the other side of the street. Even the dullest person could have figured out that that wasn't the happy squeal of two old friends running into each other, a fact proved by all of James' gang turning to see what was happening.

Alex looked, too, and saw that there was a woman sobbing hysterically and running after a man that had a little boy in his arms and was running down the sidewalk.

"That's my baby!" the woman was screaming. "Somebody stop him! He's got my baby!" The woman tripped and fell into a puddle of water, still screaming and sobbing hysterically.

James and his gang turned back to Alex, obviously unconcerned with the kidnapping that was occurring a short distance away.

"Right. Let's get down to business, shall we?" James rubbed his hands together, nodding yet again to his boys. One of the boys came right up to Alex and pulled his fist back, preparing to hit Alex.

Alex wasn't as unconcerned about the kidnapping as they were, though. He chose to turn around and run straight through the surprised older boys.

"He's getting away!" one of the boys grunted the obvious.

"What a wimp!" one of the other boys put in their two-cent's worth as well, to mutters of agreement. More of the boys, emboldened by these two's success in the art of speaking, also called after Alex calling him anything and everything they could think of. They ran out of insults very quickly.

Alex wasn't listening to them. He was sprinting as fast as he could after the man with the little boy, trying to ignore the dull throbbing in his stomach. He was quickly catching up with the man, but only because the man was having difficulties keeping hold of the squirming little boy in his arms.

Alex had almost caught up with the man, but now he had realized that he had a problem. How was he going to stop the man without hurting the little boy? The man solved his problem for him. He had stopped at a car which seemed to be his get-away vehicle, and he leaned over to toss the little boy into the backseat, and opening the door on the driver's side to get in himself.

Just as the man was about to get into the car, Alex took a flying leap and tackled him down onto the wet cement of the sidewalk. Alex rolled off the man and up onto his feet. So did the man.

Alex sized up his opponent. Tall, fit, with black hair and gray eyes. In his mid-twenties or so, and Alex could see his muscles through the fabric of his sweatshirt.

Alex was beginning to regret having just leaped on him instead of thinking of a plan first. He didn't know if he would even have a chance at beating this man who was definitely not a schoolyard bully.

The man stood there staring at him, obviously wondering why a teenager had decided to play hero and tackle someone like himself. A smirk spread across his face, and he casually came at Alex with a kick. A karate kick. Alex decided that now was probably a good time to suddenly become a coward and run away. But he knew that he couldn't do that, because then the man would just get away with that poor little boy.

Thinking of that little boy got Alex motivated, and though he wasn't quick enough to completely evade the kick, he managed to lessen the impact significantly, lashing back with one of his own, which the other man promptly blocked. Alex followed up with a quick flurry of punches, all of which the man managed to avoid but one. The one lucky, extremely lucky, punch hit hard enough that the man reeled back and slammed his head onto the corner of his own get-away car, which didn't seem to like him very much, as it had no problem with knocking the man out.

Alex walked over to the car and leaned over the man, checking to make sure that the man had a pulse and that Alex hadn't just accidentally killed yet another person. The pulse was there, strong and steady. The man was just unconscious. Alex let out a breath that he hadn't known he was holding.

He straightened up, and found himself staring into a large pair of bright blue eyes. Alex pulled back in surprise and realized that it was the little boy who had been kidnapped. He was no more than three years old, and his fluffy blond hair was sticking up on top of his head.

Alex smiled. "Hi," he said softly. "Let's get you back to your mum, alright?" he picked up the little boy, and carefully, very carefully, stood up. Wincing many times, he managed to carry the little boy all the way back to his mother, who was hobbling along on an obviously twisted ankle.

"Andrew! Oh, thank god! Andrew!" she snatched the little boy, Andrew, out of Alex's arms and pulled him into her own.

"Thank you! Thank you so much!" she said hysterically to Alex, taking an arm away from her baby and wrapping it around Alex instead, crying hysterically onto Alex's shoulder.

There was a whir of sirens and a police car pulled up. Alex was starting to feel a little panicked himself with a hysterical woman crying on him, and he was greatly relieved that the police had arrived. The crowd that had gathered around, offering condolences and pity were only good for talking, they wanted nothing to do with actually helping Alex with the hysterical woman.

Two police officers got out of the car and walked briskly over to Alex and the hysterical woman.

"Ma'am? Sir?" one of the officers asked. "What's going on here?"

"That man" - Alex gestured to the man lying next to his car down the road - "attempted to kidnap this little boy." Alex said.

"Attempted?" one of the officers, a woman raised an eyebrow in question.

"This young man stopped him," Hysterical Woman announced tearfully, finally pulling away from Alex.

"Did you?" the other cop, a man, asked Alex.

Alex nodded silently.

The man nodded thoughtfully. "I'll go cuff the suspect," he told his partner.

The woman nodded and turned to Alex and Hysterical Woman. "I'm going to have to ask you all to come down to the Station to testify," she said.

Alex nodded. "I'll go get my bike." He turned to walk across the street to retrieve his bike from where he'd left it after falling and ended up almost running into James, who looked extremely uncomfortable. He'd obviously seen Alex knocking the kidnapper out before, as he looked at him in respect, if not awe now.

"What d'you want?" Alex asked wearily.

"Do you want your bike?" James asked, answering a question with another question.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Yes."

"I'll get it for you," James said.

Alex shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said, and waited for the older boy to do what he'd offered.

James just looked at him, not moving a step.

Alex rolled his eyes and started to walk past him and continue on his quest to get his bike back.

James put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. "I'll get it for you," he repeated, but he still didn't move.

"Then why don't you go get it?" Alex asked, frustrated. After another long moment of James looking at him expectantly, he finally realized that the older boy was waiting for something. Hesitantly, Alex nodded at him.

James turned and walked away, returning with Alex's bike.

A/N: So...what do you think? Adequate? Or epic fail? Reviews would be awesome! (MUCH more awesome than my amazing subtle hints) Constructive criticism and advice would be greatly appreciated, as that's pretty much the first time that I've actually attempted to write a physical disagreement of any kind.

So please review! After all, if you got this far, then you might as well review, right?

-Jusmine ^__^